The 2nd last day of our trip in Melbourne, we woke up lazily and ate some light breakfast (leftovers from our late night supper the night before) before we headed out to Melbourne Shopping District on Bourke Street, where there were a congregation of large shopping centres that crosses vast territories and goes over a few streets. They included GPO, Melbourne Central, Meyers, David Jones, QV and Target Center.
GPO, Melbourne
Meyer and David Jones (Huge department store)
Elle Macpherson, visiting Australia
Mid-day, we rest our tired feet in a Shanghai Restaurant (mum wants Asian cuisine, still). We had the set lunches of promfret and Wuxi prawn and guo tie.
After our meal, we went on further shopping (mainly window shopping) as the sales on were still very expensive by Singapore standards. It’s probably due to the exchange rate.
My mum was really tired from the walking, but she obliged me to find the location of Golden Monkey during the day and see if I could check it out now. Walking about, a few wrong turns, and I eventually found Golden Monkey at Hardware Lane (A tiny little lane which I had wanted to find), where there were very pretty and tiny restaurants, which weren’t really open at that time of the day. I was glad I walked through it. Eventually did not go back to Golden Monkey. Sighs!
Hardware Lane
Dinner was also at another Asian Restaurant – Chinatown Dumpling Restaurant – Beijing food. Ate dumplings, Spring onion dry noodles and fried Kailan. Damn filling!!!
After our meal, I wanted to go chill in a pub. There was a nearby one which I thought was a Jazz Club, from the name – Manchester Lane Jazz Club. We arrived there and there was a cover of $15 because some band was going to perform there – Hugo race. I just wanted to chill, and listen to a nice band. My mum wasn’t so keen, but she was very accommodating. I would have gone to another pub, but I wasn’t sure if the other one I had identified (Bennet’s Lane Jazz Club) would have a cover or not, and it was too far away to go check out. So, we just stayed there. From 7.15 pm all the way till 9.15 pm before the first band was supposed to play. The performance was delayed about 1 hour. The first band which I though was the in house band – James McCallen – was like a rock band, but I absolutely did not like the songs they were singing.
I was hoping to myself that the other brand (the big name one, whoever they were) would be better. The Calendar of events had said they were going to sing the style of blues. When they began, they also performed their rendition of rock. Bad rock, in my opinion. Rock, that I do not listen to. Sighs! It was a terrible mistake and I’m so sorry to have put my mum through such horrible music and terrible misery.
We kept coming back to the same tram stop at Swanston Street and Flinders Street and my mum would pray every time we stood in front of the cross at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral.
A late night snack of donuts and instant noodles before some packing and rest …
Farewell to Melbourne, in 24 hours time I will be back in Singapore.